Driver health and fatigue monitoring system and method

Abstract

Vehicle including a seat in which an occupant sits during use of the vehicle and a monitoring system for monitoring the occupant in the seat. The monitoring system includes sets of electric field antennas, each including at least one antenna, a control unit connected to the antenna sets and including selectors coupled to the antennas. The selectors are controlled by the control unit to obtain signals from one or more antennas serving as receiving antennas and one or more antennas serving as sending antennas. The control unit determines which combination of sending antenna(s) and receiving antenna(s) provides a strongest signal in an expected heartbeat range and/or expected respiration range of the occupant and then monitors this combination for changes and/or deviations from a normal range of heartbeats and/or respiration.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. Nos. 61 / 452,469 filed Mar. 14, 2011 and 61 / 547,798 filed Oct. 17, 2011, both of which are incorporated by reference herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for monitoring a driver of a vehicle to determine at least one characteristic, condition, property and / or state of the driver, for example, whether the driver is falling asleep or otherwise unable to operate the vehicle.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]There are several different vehicular situations that are lumped together and called the distracted or inattentive driver problem. These situations include cases where the driver is wide-awake but eating, putting on make-up, texting and talking on the phone; cases where the driver is physically fatigued and may or may not also be sleepy; medical condition cases where the driver suf...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0062]A vehicle including a seat in which an occupant, such as a driver, sits during use of the vehicle, and a monitoring system for monitoring the occupant in said seat. The monitoring system includes a plurality of sets of electric field antennas, each set including at least one antenna and more likely a plurality of antennas, and a control unit connected to the antenna sets and that includes selectors coupled to said antennas and that controls the selectors to obtain signals from one or more of said antennas serving as receiving antennas and one or more of said antennas serving as sending antennas. After obtaining signals from multiple combinations of the antennas, and maybe even all of the possible combinations of antennas, the control unit determines which combination of one or more of said antennas serving as the sending antennas and one or more of said antennas serving as the receiving antennas provides a strongest signal in an expected heartbeat range and/or expected respiration range of the occupant. Thereafter, the control unit monitors this determined combination for changes and/or deviations from a normal range of

Problems solved by technology

Driver inattention is a larger problem than driving sleepiness and fatigue.

In the medical area, drivers suffering from obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) have an increased risk for being involved in motor-vehicle collisions.

OSA has many negative effects, including excessive daytime sleepiness, increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, hypertension, psychological distress, and cognitive impairment.

A large number of patents and technical papers address systems for detection of a drowsy driver but despite the potential for such systems, researchers have been largely unsuccessful in finding a feasible way to identify sleepiness or inattention.

However, attaching electrodes to a driver is intrusive and is not a practical solution to drowsiness detection.

Unfortunately, none of these systems have demonstrated a forecasting success rate that permits action to be taken in time for the driver to get to a location where he/she can exit the road in time.

Unfortunately, a 10-second warning is insufficient for the driver to find an exit and pull off of the road even if he/she accepts the warning of the vehicle system.

However, measuring eye closures is hampered by a driver wearing glasses, hats or other apparatus which shades the eyes from the camera, intensity of ambient light (e.g., sunlight) and in variation in the eye shape from person to person.

Thus, although there have been numerous studies and many systems developed, none has been deplo

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